Biden's Rambling

by Editor
October 21, 2014 at 9:33 am

https://www.smartertimes.com/1301/biden-rambling

Heads up: I am about to criticize the Times for being unfairly critical of a Democratic politician, which may be surprising given my own center-right political leanings. In a news article about an appearance by Governor Andrew Cuomo and Vice President Biden, the Times reports that Mr. Biden "rambled on for 25 minutes about the importance of rebuilding the nation's infrastructure."

This is a perfect example of what a friend observed the other day: The Times has given up on reporting what happened, and instead taken on the job of telling you what it wants you to think about what happened. A neutral newspaper would say that Mr. Biden "spoke for 25 minutes about the importance of rebuilding the nation's infrastructure," or leave out the elapsed time of Mr. Biden's speech entirely, unless it was newsworthy in either its brevity or its length. But 25 minutes isn't exactly Castro-level. If the vice president was incoherent, better to demonstrate that with direct quotations than to characterize it as a "ramble" in a way that may lead readers who are Biden fans to suspect that the Times reporter either has a short attention span or is a secret agent of the Republican National Committee.

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